


You Can Feel It on the Way Home

by airplanejam



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airplanejam/pseuds/airplanejam
Summary: Dean doesn’t—He doesn’t think. Cas is driving the Impala, eyes on the road (he’s whistling, actually, Sam has been teaching him how to) and Dean doesn’t know why it’s this Sunday as opposed to any other Sunday this month. As opposed to never.All he knows is that something inside him has melted away or crumbled or dissolved to the sound of Robert Plant’s too-quiet voice from the radio and Cas’ fucking god-awful whistling, and Dean has had it up to here.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 125





	You Can Feel It on the Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So I haven't been part of the SPN fandom in, like, 4 years, and then November 5th happened, and here we are. Right back in DeanCas hell, like I never left. 
> 
> Anyways, thank you so so much to [CallenoftheNorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallenoftheNorth/pseuds/CallenoftheNorth) for beta-reading this! Title is from Taylor Swift's "You Are In Love".

Dean doesn’t—

He doesn’t think. Cas is driving the Impala, eyes on the road (he’s whistling, actually, Sam has been teaching him how to) and Dean doesn’t know why it’s this Sunday as opposed to any other Sunday this month. As opposed to never. 

All he knows is that something inside him has melted away or crumbled or dissolved to the sound of Robert Plant’s too-quiet voice from the radio and Cas’ fucking god-awful whistling, and Dean has had it up to here. 

“Pull over,” he says. 

“Why?” Cas asks, glancing at him. “Does your arm hurt? I can get more gauze from the—”

Dean thinks he would drive halfway across the world to see Cas if he wasn’t with him right this moment. There’s an urgency picking at his skin. It’s not sexual, and it’s not anxious, just an insistent push. A steadfast sort of do-or-die. Cas has been the goddamn love of Dean’s life since somewhere between _I’m the one who gripped you tight_ and _Well, I’ll go with you_ and Dean will deal with the consequences later. 

“Cas,” Dean says. “Just pull over. Please.”

Cas does as he’s told. They’re driving through suburbia, a sort of small-town heaven. Dean had rolled down his window a few hours earlier before they had been attacked, and he could smell the going-ons of each house. Brick-and-peonies had been doing the laundry, the scent of detergent pungent in the air outside their driveway, and green-shutters-and-ugly-chimney had been burning cookies. Dean used to crave this sort of neighborhood when John would drive them by on hunts. Mothers who only worry about PTA meetings and what to make for dinner. Fathers who smile at the kitchen table, teach their sons to fold paper airplanes. 

He still thinks it would be nice. Cas has parked them on an inside road. Jones Street, Virginia. Dean sees children crossing the street on their skateboards in the afternoon sun. He entertains the fantasy, briefly: Dean, baking pastries and sipping wine, Cas, doing laundry and washing dishes. A cozy white home. It slips away in his mind’s eye. That sort of thing is dangerous. Dean knows—you can’t think about it for too long or it eats you. Pulls your hair out and leaves you dead. That sort of thing isn’t for—

Men who’ve come back from the dead one too many times. Isn’t for fallen angels. Dean has tried it before. Didn’t really stick.

He gathers himself, turns off the radio. Cas is looking at him, waiting. Concern lines his face. This is without thought, yes, but it isn’t impulsive. Cas deserves so much better than that. 

Dean brings his non-injured hand up to cup Cas’ face, slowly. Runs his thumb over the ever-present stubble. Cas leans into it, unblinking, and Dean leans forward. He closes his eyes, presses their lips together, softly. Almost reverently. Cas’ are chapped, a little rough, just like they look. Dean pulls away, drops his hand. 

It’s done. Cas has to know, now, and Dean doesn’t feel better. His blood is rushing loudly through his veins. The grass outside of his window is wilting—or dying, whatever the fuck it’s called when it starts to turn yellow. “Sorry.” He doesn’t look at Cas. His voice is rough. “We can. We can go now.”

“Dean,” says Cas, quiet. He can feel the weight of Cas’ gaze on him. He thinks Cas never really learned not to stare, even after all these years. “What was that for?”

That was for a lot of things. That was for coming when Dean calls, that was for being the best friend Dean has ever had. It was for staying, finally, after everything. For choosing Dean. For coming back to him. 

But Dean doesn’t have it in him anymore. Cas knows what that was for—Dean wrapped it all up in his kiss. He doesn’t think he’s kissed anyone the same way he kissed Cas. Not Lisa, not Cassie. Not anyone before that.

“Nothing,” Dean mutters. 

He wasn’t expecting anything out of this, but God, it still smarts. He knows that Cas doesn’t do—love in that way. Dean knew Cas didn’t want him. And he had made his peace with that long ago. But this still feels like heartbreak, feels like getting turned down to a middle school date except only a hundred times worse. What would trillion-year-old Castiel, former Angel of the Lord, want with Dean, anyway? _I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me?_ a corner of his mind echoes. Dean is the very picture of repression. Daddy issues, addictive personality. Alcoholic, shitty friend, the entire worthless package. 

Dean pictures the houses outside his window crumbling. The stupid picturesque family inside drowning in their laundry detergent. 

“I have to know,” Cas says, except this time it’s even deeper than his usual rumble. “Please, Dean. Why did you do that?”

Dean rolls up his window, and looks at Cas. “Why do you think I did that,” he says finally. 

Cas reaches for his shoulder but drops his hand, rerouting towards his wrist. He holds it loosely, so Dean can break away without any effort at all. His voice is uneven. “I don’t always … understand you. Humans. In this sort of thing. I have to know what you want from me. You have to spell it out for me.”

“Why, so you can _spell out_ ‘no’ for me?” Dean spits. He doesn’t want to take it out on Cas, but he’s just so angry, suddenly. At the universe, at himself. “I know where I stand with you. I don’t know why I kissed you. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Dean,” Castiel growls. He’s gripping Dean’s wrist, blunt nails digging into his skin. It’s not even a fraction of his strength but it’s grounding. He looks—ferocious. Like his eyes would be glowing if he had any grace left. “Dean Winchester. I am _in love_ with you. I want you to kiss me again, and again and again for the rest of our lives. _What. Do. You. Want. From. Me?_ ”

Dean’s mouth opens and closes. He swallows hard, and part of him wonders if he’s been trapped by a Djinn. Looks away, to the house outside his window, and then back to Cas. “What?” he says, stupidly. 

Cas glares at him. 

“You’re … in love with me?”

“Yes. I just said that.” 

“But. You don’t,” Dean falters. “I mean. You can. Me?”

He’s still stoic, but Cas deflates slightly. His eyes soften at the creases and he lets go of Dean’s wrist. “You,” he agrees. “I love you.” He sounds so earnest that Dean’s heart breaks all over again. 

This time, Dean isn’t slow about it. He nearly lunges for Cas, as if he'll fade away if Dean doesn’t reach him fast enough. He clenches his good arm in Cas’ trench, hands shaking, and crashes their mouths together. 

Cas makes a noise, low in his chest, and then he’s giving as good as he gets, kissing Dean back just as desperately. He moves his hands up to tangle in Dean’s hair, pulls him even closer. The steering wheels juts uncomfortably into Dean’s shoulder and he’s stretched out awkwardly across the Impala’s front seat and he can taste the coffee Cas had instead of breakfast in his mouth, but Dean needs more. 

He pulls back, but keeps their faces close, pants into the air between them. His fingers flex where they grip Cas’ coat. “Cas,” he breathes, and it comes out more broken than he intended. 

“I’ve got you,” Cas tells him, and then he’s wrapping Dean in an embrace, strong arms going around his shoulders. Dean doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Only Cas would give him a hug—a honest-to-god, family-friendly _hug_ in the middle of—

Whatever they were in the middle of. Dean knows how to handle sex. This is something different. This is new, this is intimacy: Cas is holding him. Like a lover. Still, Dean can’t stop himself from melting into it, pressing his face into Cas’ neck and inhaling. It feels too good. He’s surrounded by Cas. His clothes, his smell, his muscles. Even with no mojo, he’s stronger than Dean and Sam put together. Almost human. It figures: Cas has never done a single thing normally in his life. Can’t even become a proper, weak human. He does it his way, the stubborn bastard. 

He thinks he owes Cas a response. A response in words. But Dean doesn’t think he can make that declaration yet. It doesn’t come easy to him, like it seems to for Cas. It doesn’t seem like enough to tell him with his hands or lips, now. 

“You’ve got to know, Cas.” Dean takes the coward’s way out, muffles the words into Cas’ neck. “You’re it for me.”

Cas pulls back and looks him in the eye. Dean doesn’t know if Cas knows what he means, but Cas must understand the gravity behind his statement because he laces their hands together and kisses Dean’s temple, gently. “Okay,” he says.

Dean thinks of roses and tulips and carnations. He thinks of Cas in the driver’s seat of his car, right where he is now. He leans in again, and when they do pull back onto the road and set off from this small town, Dean doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :D Also, feel free to drop some concrit if you'd like. 
> 
> Come hang out with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/wouIdbeking)!


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